Amazon said Tuesday it would invest US$9 billion in Singapore over the next four years to expand its cloud computing capabilities in the city.

The announcement comes after fellow tech titan Microsoft unveiled billions of dollars of investment in the same sectors in Southeast Asia last week as firms look to take advantage of growing demand in the region.

Amazon said the figure doubles its investment in the city-state and will help it meet growing demand for cloud services and adopt artificial intelligence.

"AWS (Amazon Web Services) is doubling down on its cloud infrastructure investments in Singapore from 2024 to 2028 to support customer demand, and help reinforce Singapore's status as an attractive regional innovation launchpad...," Priscilla Chong, Country Manager of Singapore for AWS, said.

Amazon said its investment will support some 12,000 jobs in Singaporean businesses each year.

It is also partnering with the Singapore government to help local businesses accelerate the adoption of AI.

The e-commerce titan last week said profit in the first three months of 2024 tripled as its cloud, ads, and retail businesses thrived.

The company founded by Jeff Bezos is also testing an AI chatbot named Rufus that provides shopping tips to US mobile app customers.

Meanwhile, generative AI features for sellers help them create product listings.

The company also plans to invest billions of dollars in AWS datacenters in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United States in coming years, according to the earnings release last week.

Tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft have been investing more in Southeast Asia recently.

Microsoft pledged US$2.2 billion in artificial intelligence and cloud computing investment in Malaysia on Thursday.

That announcement came after tech chief Satya Nadella unveiled a US$1.7 bn investment in Indonesia, as well as Thailand's first data center region.

The tiny but wealthy and infrastructure-rich Singapore has become a business and technology center in Southeast Asia, further solidifying its status after the pandemic.

© 2024 AFP